The John Corcoran Tragedy – The School Choice Solution

The Poster Boy for Universal School Choice

January 9, 2018

The John Corcoran tragedy is the story of the catastrophic failure of public and secondary education in the United States. The Corcoran travesty is a chilling example of the disastrous job public education is doing for our children.

John could neither read nor write. He was hired and served as a public school teacher in California for seventeen years. After 17 years, he wasn’t removed. He left of his own volition for a better job. Limited not by performance standards, but only by his mortality, presumably, John could have been “teaching” in California public schools for 27, 37 or even 47 years. His colleagues claim they were oblivious of his shortcomings. Now his colleagues want to keep their personal and educational identities a secret. Evidently, this is permissible.

The public school child abuse continues.

In the case of John Cocoran, there is a happy ending for him and for him alone. He ultimately learned to read and write and has gained a great deal of notoriety in the process. Here’s the story from his “Foundation” page. Good for John, but what about his “students.” Before he undertook the effort to learn, he inflicted 17 years of “instruction” on innocent California children.

What he taught his charges remains a mystery. What he showed us is that he is the “Poster Boy” for Universal School Choice.

There is an interview presented on StoryCentral.org where John describes the crimes, the contortions, the subterfuges and the lies he perpetrated with the support and either overt or unwitting consent of both his New Mexico High School, his Texas College and ultimately, his California Public School employer.

Among these are:

He was socially promoted throughout High School. He states explicitly that while attending a New Mexico Public School, he literally did nothing in the 5th grade. His grade was precisely zero. Nevertheless, he was promoted to the 6th grade. In his narrative, he asks himself why he was passed to the 6th grade. He speculates that the one 5th grade teacher in the school didn’t want to hold him back and deal with him again.

He said that after the 5th grade he dropped his defiant “bad-boy” attitude and adopted a “Kiss-Up” attitude towards authority. That coupled with his social skills, athletic ability, and incessant cheating bought him a high school diploma.

At the end of his high school career, John noted that getting through high school was “shockingly easy.” That is an indictment of US Public Education and stands alone as proof positive for the need for Universal School Choice.

While in college, John laughs that he had to get a new girlfriend every semester because they couldn’t do both their work and his. If he were kidding, it would be funny. He’s not kidding.

John tells the tale of one class that he couldn’t cheat. There were no previous written tests. The instructor made a new examination for each class. Further complicating his plans to cheat, there was no examination written on paper for him to steal. The instructor administered the exam by writing the questions on the blackboard. With the aid of another University of Texas at El Paso, John perpetrated his fraud. His solution was to have two “Blue Books” (answer books) in the class, copy the exam questions in one, toss it to his buddy out the window, pretend to respond to questions in the extra blue book while his accomplice took his test. When his co-conspirator had John’s exam, he tossed the completed Blue Book back to John who concealed the extra.

BAAAAM!!! John’s one step closer to your children.

In another incident, he stole a file cabinet from an instructor’s office. The cabinet contained the tests. John made a key to fit the cabinet and returned the file cabinet undetected. This gave him recurring access to any and all current and prospective tests this instructor might prepare.

Through these criminal activities coupled with purchasing essays, term papers, and coercing girlfriends and friends to do his work he was awarded a degree from The University of Texas at El Paso without being able to read or write.

John continued his deception when he applied and was hired as a high school teacher near Carlsbad, California. His Dad completed his application for him.

While teaching at the high school, John used teacher’s aids, books he carried as props, student volunteers, and a plan to fake a heart attack should he be asked to take notes in a faculty meeting. John hid his illiteracy for 17 years as he “taught” his students.

This could only happen in an inattentive or uncaring public school bureaucracy,

John was able to hide his illiteracy from his social studies students by showing movies and keeping everything oral. This was enough to keep both his students and his fellow “educators” oblivious to his antics.

In his oral narrative, John shares that he took some of the most troubled children who had horrific reading issues themselves into his class. His charges were in desperate need of an actual educator capable of helping them learn to read.

John was not that educator to these at-risk children for 17 years.

It’s nauseating when you read of the crimes he personally perpetrated and those he encouraged others to commit. You’re disgusted when you learn of the circus sideshow he ran in his class of at-risk students. It’s depressing when he describes how he encouraged them to work with him to hide his deceit from others.

It gets worse when John “virtue signals” his transgressions away.

John virtue signals by acknowledging that he should never have been in the classroom of children in desperate need of a qualified instructor. John virtue signals by acknowledging that there were much more skilled and deserving people that should have received the UT El Paso athletic scholarship. After his breaking and entering into his UT ElPaso Professor’s office, stealing the professor’s file cabinet and having a key made so he could cheat in coming semesters, he “virtue signals” by telling the tale that he cried and cried and cried when he thought of what he’d done.

It’s far too little far too late. The catastrophic harm he and the public school system that turned a blind eye to the children’s needs is appalling.

During his decades-long deception, it’s impossible to believe that no one knew that John could neither read nor write. Nevertheless, his colleagues left him in the classroom with at-risk students.

Of the hundreds, or, perhaps thousands of children he hurt, it’s certain that tens, if not hundreds of parents were aware of his deficiencies. The only thing they needed to assure their children were educated was Universal School Choice.

John’s actions are akin to a family with a long history of child abuse. John’s Public School abused him and he, in turn, went on to harm others in another public school.

The inbreeding, the self-righteousness, the virtue signaling, and the lack of accountability that is inherent in US Public Schools created, perpetuated and permitted John’s travesty to continue for decades. There is nothing that will protect our children and assure they receive a real education other than Universal School Choice. With Universal School Choice, education dollars follow the children. The parents place their children in the best learning environment.